Jose Maria Cano Nader Museum from San Diego Museum

The exhibition will be on view in December 2019 at Nader Art Museum during Art Basel Miami Beach Week.

The project centers on the oeuvre of contemporary Spanish artist José Maria Cano featuring his Apostolate’s Series, on view at The San Diego Museum of Art through September 2, 2019, on the occasion of the opening of Art & Empire: The Golden Age of Spain. 

In this contemporary take on the “apostolate,” José-María Cano cites the significance of the number twelve: “as the twelve tribes of Israel and the zodiac signs. Twelve is not just any number. It relates the sun, the moon and the Earth. It is the number of lunar cycles that occurs when the Earth goes around the sun.” In this resin series, begun in 2015 and completed in 2019 to coincide with Art and Empire: The Golden Age of Spain, Cano offers a present-day collection of portraits of ordinary men, who become extraordinary in his paintings.

Born in Madrid in 1959, Cano spent his youth as a highly successful musician and composer with the Spanish pop-rock band “Mecano” before making his transition into the world of visual arts in 2002. José María Cano’s acclaimed oeuvre poses a critical question on the extraordinarily powerful role that images play in the contemporary and looks into truth versus reality.

His works have been exhibited at numerous international museums and galleries around the world, including two shows at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague in 2009 as well as the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.